What Does the Trail Arm Do in the Golf Swing?

Your trail arm in the golf swing is far more than just a follower, it's a powerful engine responsible for generating speed, creating essential width, and controlling the clubface through impact. While many golfers focus on their lead arm, understanding what your trail arm (the right arm for a right-handed golfer) should be doing is one of the fastest ways to build a more powerful and consistent swing. This guide will walk you through the trail arm's vital roles during each phase of the swing and give you the feelings and drills to master them.

The Trail Arm: Your Swing's Overlooked Power Source

Think of your golf swing as a partnership between your arms and your body's rotation. The body provides the core engine, turning back and through. The lead arm often acts as a radius, maintaining the swing's arc. But the trail arm? It's the action hero. It's the accumulator and deliverer of speed. It folds in the backswing to store power and then fires through impact, releasing that energy directly into the ball.

Many common swing faults, from a weak slice to a frustrating lack of distance, can often be traced back to an improper trail arm motion. When the trail arm works correctly, it feels supportive, powerful, and connected to your body's turn. When it works incorrectly, it can feel disconnected, overpowering, or weak. Let's fix that.

The Trail Arm in the Backswing: Folding for Power

The backswing is all about charging up your swing. A sloppy or disconnected backswing rarely leads to a powerful and accurate downswing. Your trail arm’s main job here is to fold correctly, setting the club on the right path and storing tremendous energy.

How to Fold the Trail Arm Correctly

As you begin your takeaway, your arms and chest should turn away from the ball together as a single unit. As the club gets to about parallel to the ground, your trail arm should begin to fold naturally. The key here is how it folds.

• Keep the Elbow Pointing Down: As you swing to the top, imagine your trail elbow pointing down toward the ground for as long as possible. Many amateurs let their elbow flare out and away from their body, a move called the "flying elbow," which causes a steep, over-the-top downswing.
• Create a "Waiter's Tray" Position: A fantastic feel at the top of your swing is to get your trail arm into a position that resembles a waiter carrying a tray of drinks. Your trail wrist should be bent back (extended), your palm facing up towards the sky, and you should feel a sense of support under the club. This position presets your arm for a powerful delivery into the ball.
• Maintain Width: Even as it folds, the trail arm is responsible for maintaining width - the distance between your hands and your chest. The feeling shouldn't be that your arm is collapsing tightly against your body. It should feel like a powerful, loaded 'L' shape at the top.

Common Backswing Faults and How to Fix Them

The Fault: Flying Trail Elbow. This is when your right elbow gets too high and separated from your body at the top of the swing. It forces the club onto a very steep plane, usually resulting in a slice or a weak pull shot.

The Fix: The Headcover Drill. Take a glove or a headcover and tuck it into your trail armpit. Now, make practice swings focusing on keeping that headcover in place all the way to the top of your backswing. You won't be able to swing to a full "PGA Tour" finish, but you will feel the connection between your trail arm and your torso. This builds the muscle memory of keeping your arm structure intact.

The Fault: Getting "Stuck." This is the opposite problem, where the trail arm and elbow get too pinned or trapped behind your body. This forces an inside-out swing path, often leading to huge blocks to the right or wild hooks as your hands flip over to try and save the shot.

The Fix: Feel the Width. Your first move in the backswing should be a wide turn with your body and arms together. Imagine pushing your hands away from the target in a wide arc. This gets the club moving correctly at the start, preventing it from immediately getting dragged behind you.

The Trail Arm in the Downswing: The Delivery System

This is where all your hard work in the backswing pays off. The downswing is about sequencing - your body leads, and the arms follow. The trail arm's job here is to maintain its stored energy and then release it directly through the golf ball with incredible speed.

Power, Lag, and Release

As you start your downswing with your lower body, your trail arm should maintain the angle it had at the top for as long as possible. This retention of the wrist angle is often called "lag," and it's a massive source of clubhead speed. You're not consciously "holding" the angle, you're just letting the arm respond to your body's turn.

The feeling is not one of pulling the club handle down with your hands. Instead, the feeling is your body unwinding, which drops the arm and club into the "slot" - a perfect delivery position. From here, you can unleash the trail arm.

Through the impact zone, your trail arm straightens powerfully. Imagine you are skipping a stone or throwing a frisbee sidearm. You wouldn't pull your hand, you'd let the arm whip through. It's the same feeling here. Your trail arm and hand are "throwing" the clubhead at the back of the golf ball.

Squaring the Clubface

The final, vital job of the trail arm through impact is squaring the club. This happens through a natural rotation of the trail forearm. As you approach the ball, the forearm rotates, allowing the palm of your trail hand, which was facing the sky at the top, to face the target at impact. This is what squares the club and produces a solid, straight shot.

Common Downswing Faults and How to Fix Them

The Fault: Casting or "Over the Top." This happens when you get anxious from the top and throw the clubhead out with your hands and arms first, instead of letting your body lead. Your trail arm straightens too early, wasting all its stored power before it even gets to the ball. This is the number one cause of the slice.

The Fix: One-Arm-Only Drill. Take some easy, half-swings using only your trail arm. Set up, take the club back to waist-high, and then focus on turning your body through to hit the ball. You'll quickly feel that if you just use your arm, the shots are weak. But if you let your body's turn bring the arm through, you can deliver a solid thump to the ball. This teaches your arm to respond to your body's rotation.

The Fault: The "Chicken Wing." This is when, after impact, your trail elbow bends and points outwards, away from your body. It's usually a protective reaction to an open clubface, as your body tries to stop the ball from going right. It kills power and produces inconsistent strikes.

The Fix: The Punch Shot Finish. Hit some 7 or 8-irons, but only make a three-quarter swing. Your goal is to finish with both arms extended straight towards the target, with the clubhead below your shoulder height. You should feel the back of your lead hand and the palm of your trail hand facing the target. This forces your trail arm to extend through impact rather than breaking down.

The Trail Arm in the Follow-Through: Completing the Arc

The work isn't done at impact. A good follow-through is a sign that you released the club correctly. After striking the ball, your trail arm should continue to extend down the target line as your body continues to rotate. This feeling of hitting *through* the ball, not *at* it, is essential for solid contact.

As your body's rotation pulls your arms around, the trail arm will naturally re-fold into a relaxed finish position around your lead shoulder. Your body should be facing the target, with almost all your weight on your lead foot, in a balanced, comfortable finish. Look at photos of professional golfers, their trail arm is always soft and relaxed in the finish, a sign it did its job perfectly through the hitting area.

Final Thoughts

Mastering your trail arm transforms your golf swing from a disconnected sequence of parts into a flowing, powerful motion. By understanding how to properly fold it in the backswing, sequence it in the downswing, and release it through impact, you unlock a major source of consistency and speed that you might not have known you had.

It can be tough to "feel" if you're doing something like flying your elbow or getting your arm stuck behind you. Honing your swing requires accurate feedback, and that's precisely where our coaches and I designed Caddie AI to help. Instead of guessing, you can ask for a diagnosis of your swing issues and get instant, clear advice tailored to what you're working on, helping you understand the cause and providing drills for the solution, right on the range or at home.